Monday, August 29, 2011

In the forthcoming film Mausam, their characters, Aayat and Harinder 'Harry' Singh, express their feelings through eloquent letters. Actors Sonam Kapoor and Shahid Kapoor admit that they have penned a few love letters of their own too and received quite a few as well but these will not go into. any brochure to promote the film as has been reported.

“I got my first love letter at the age of 14. It was from a classmate and badly written. But what more can you expect from a schoolboy of that age?”

Sonam reminisces with a smile. Shahid has no memories of his first love letter but recalls that when he was in college, he got a lot of them. He says, “I don’t know if they were on scented paper but I do remember that they left me feeling nice. I myself went scouting for beautiful stationary and romantic poetry, it’s the thing to do when you’re in love. Some of these letters are much cherished, that’s understandable given that they came from someone I was drawn to, and have been treasured for my eyes only.”

With an embarrassed laugh, he admits that he wrote a few when the girl, who was always in his thoughts, was away from him. “But they were more like little notes, short and sweet SMSes and mails. There’s a great sense of self-satisfaction in bonding with someone you love. That makes you want to write or type,” he points out.

Sonam agrees and says that she penned her thoughts down on paper for the first time when she was around 19-20. “I write a lot,” she says. “I’m always mailing handwritten cards and thank you notes. They are far more personal than emails and SMSes. Even as a child I loved craft and books.”

However, unlike Aayat in the film, who finds it difficult to be with Harry and has to fall back on letters, Sonam believes that when she finds her soul mate, communication will be far easier given the facilities we have today, namely easy-to-carry laptops, Blackberry messengers and iPhones.

She says, “It’s hard to imagine life without cell phones even though they’ve been around for just a decade. Sometimes I look at my parents (Anil and Sunita Kapoor), who even after all these years, are still so much in love, and wonder how they’ve kept their love story so dewy fresh through the different seasons. The letters may have helped.”